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Wars and conflicts

  • How They Sell the Military
    3 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    6 comments

    A former Marine recruiter explains... How they sell the military
    CHRIS DUGAN served in the Marines from 1995 to 1999, including a short period when he was a recruiter. Now, he considers himself a counter-recruiter. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    ALTHOUGH I am a former Marine, I cannot talk to you about the horrors of war. I cannot spin you tales of skirmishes I fought in, or friends that I’ve lost, and I cannot show you any battle scars. During my time as a Marine, I was fortunate that (…)

  • ACLU and Human Rights First Sue Defense Secretary Rumsfeld Over U.S. Torture Policies
    3 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    7 comments

    WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First charged today in the first federal court lawsuit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan that has tarnished America’s reputation.
    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Illinois on behalf of eight men who were subject to torture and abuse at the (…)

  • Custer Battles: Justice Dept. won’t Intervene to Reclaim Millions From Military Contractor in Iraq
    2 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    A U.S. military contractor in Iraq is at the center of a controversy over how American-forces disbursed and accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraq.
    The firm, Custer Battles is being charged in a lawsuit of defrauding the Coalition Provisional Authority of tens of millions of dollars during work in Iraq, which included securing Baghdad International Airport.
    Two former employees sued the company last year under the False Claims Act, seeking to recover damages on behalf of (…)

  • US Soldier Deaths have more than Doubled over 2004
    2 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    6 comments

    by Ben Frank
    In the first two months of 2005 US casualties in Iraq have more than doubled over the first two months of 2004.
    If this pattern continues, more than 100 US troops will die next month, and more than 200 will die in April.
    The Question of the Day is:
    Why does the United States continue to send young Americans and billions of dollars to Iraq? Are US soldiers really ’spreading freedom’ ... or is this about oil and strategic positioning via the 14 ’enduring bases’ the US is (…)

  • Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed for Sec of Veterans Affairs departure
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    7 comments

    Project Censored Award Winner
    Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium munitions in the Iraq War.
    Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, “The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given, however a special (…)

  • White House Must Charge Or Free Suspect
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by Mark Sherman WASHINGTON - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration Monday to either charge terrorism suspect Jose Padilla with a crime or release him after more than 2 1/2 years in custody.
    U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., said the government can not hold Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," a designation President Bush gave him in 2002.
    "The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor (…)

  • Top Former CIA Agent Condemns New Terror War
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    by Davud Pratt, Foreign Editor A running joke in Washington late last year held that Langley, the CIA’s home in Virginia, was changing its name to Fallujah after the restive Iraqi town then held by insurgents. Like Fallujah, Langley - according to some White House wags - was full of rebels that needed to be cleared out. This would inevitably lead to lots of casualties along the way. But putting the jokes and bravado aside, many at the CIA’s longtime base already knew that the winds of (…)

  • In Vermont, A Town-Meeting Revolt Over Iraq War
    1 March 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    by Sara B. Miller HUNTINGTON, VT. - This is a town with no diners, one church, two general stores, and 1,800 people. When the kindergarten teacher’s son returned from Iraq after 10 months, the potluck church dinner in his honor was so packed no one had room to sit. Only a handful of the more than 200,000 men and women who have been deployed to Iraq come from this sleepy whistle-stop. But everyone seems to know someone who has served, even died, there: a friend’s husband, a neighbor, the (…)

  • For many Vermonters, Iraq is on the ballot
    28 February 2005 par (Open-Publishing)

    Towns to vote on antiwar resolution
    By Sarah Schweitzer
    Vermont’s town meetings next week will offer the nation one of the first popular referendums on the Iraq war.
    In one-fifth of the state’s 251 towns, residents on Tuesday will be asked to vote on a resolution that calls upon President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq and urges the state’s elected leaders to reconsider the use of Vermont’s National Guard in the war.
    The state has borne a heavy burden from the Iraq conflict. (…)

  • COLOMBIAN ARMY UNIT MURDERS PEACE COMMUNITY LEADER
    28 February 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    An Update From the Colombia Support Network
    On February 21, 2005 , the 11th Brigade of the Colombian Army, based in the state of Cordoba, massacred 7 people of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, among those one of its founders, LUIS EDUARDO GUERRA. Luis Eduardo, age 35, was killed with his 11-year old son, DEINER GUERRA ; his companion, BELLANIRA AREIZA- GUZMAN, 17 years old; a leader of the Mulatos settlement and its Peace Community, ALFONSO BOLIVAR TUBERQUIA -GRACIANO, age 30 ; (…)